One of the issues that was raised repeatedly by Bernie Sanders and later by Donald Trump is the alliance between Hillary Clinton and David Brock, the founder of Media Matters. Brock has been widely attacked for what critics view as sleazy and vicious work on behalf of Hillary Clinton. You may recall Bernie Sanders denouncing Clinton for her continued alliance with Brock and use of his controversial PAC organizations. Sanders referred to Brock as simple “scum” but Clinton refused to denounced Brock or to discourage Democrats from working with or contributing to his PACs. It turns out that even Clinton aides were disgusted by Clinton’s refusal to cut off Brock or to denounced his work. In the latest batch of Wikileaks, Neera Tanden, the President of Center for American Progress, allegedly emailed John Podesta that “I hope Hillary truly understands now how batshit crazy David Brock is.”

Of course, the question answers itself. The consistent view from both inside and outside of the Clinton campaign referenced Brock in the same terms. The obvious conclusion is that it is precisely those attributes that proved the attraction.

The mainstream media has been repeatedly accused of ignoring the Clinton-Brock connection. Yet, the email (if accurate) shows that Clinton allies were equally concerned about the association. Tanden previously worked for Hillary Clinton’s Senate campaign and later served as policy director for Barack Obama.

edm – I think it’s clear that anyone and everyone who isn’t voting for Clinton – including third-party voters – thinks Hillary Clinton will have a precipitously negative effect on this country and the world if and when she’s elected. Unfortunately, because Trump has indelibly alienated likely the the majority of non-white voters in this country in contrast to bamboozling them as Clinton has, my best guess is that Clinton will win in a landslide.

I don’t fear her, however, for the same reason I don’t fear used-car salesmen. It’s the 18-year olds that she’ll send or at the very least pave the way to be sent to war for her donors that should be afraid, but they’re too young to know any better.

Trump is such an upstanding character! He’s just the tiniest bit racist, bigoted, misogynistic. He has employed undocumented workers, used imported Chinese steel instead of America steel in some of his big buildings, has his clothing line manufactured overseas, failed to pay his obligations to many small businesses, etc… But he’s the greatest guy…and would make the best president because he NEVER lies.

Trump has also alienated people like me–people who know how to think…who know how to judge a man by his actions and not by his rhetoric. I don’t like Hillary Clinton much–but Trump is the scariest presidential candidate that I have ever seen.

*****

“It’s the 18-year olds that she’ll send or at the very least pave the way to be sent to war for her donors that should be afraid, but they’re too young to know any better.”

Did you worry about that when Bush and Cheney lied us into a war with Iraq?

edm, I’m a Lefty. Hillary Clinton has crowned herself special enough to be whatever will get her elected as if that’s something of greater moral value than Donald Trump, and you know it. They’re both a couple of blowhards, but Clinton is up to her ears in corporate donor obligations with no time for public obligations.

I’d like to see all those billions of corporate contributions to political candidates out of politics–whether they are made by Democrats or Republicans. I believe it corrupts the process and the politicians. I’d add that presidential campaigns go on far too long. Six months should be more than enough time for the process.

edm – Clinton and her husband have taken lying and denying and made it an art form. They’ve even got Donna Brazile denying to any idiots that will listen although her creativity limits her to saying damning leaks were confidential emails and that the Russians did it as her evasive methods. Clinton can do no wrong. You want that in a president?

Trump is nowhere near that level, and Congress dislikes him so much he may be the first impeached and convicted. If you’re going to vote for one those two hosebags, voting for Trump is the better strategy in terms of affecting/controlling his policies and usurpation of his authority.

Steve,
None of that matters to “people who think..people like me”, as edm puts it.
” People who think” are not to be alienated by the $670,000 she reveived for speaking at Goldman Sacks.
“People who think” like edm “thinks” are not alienated by mishandling ckassified material, lying about it, overthrowing Gaddafi (and Lybia into choas), saying “Mubarek must go”, voting for the Iraq war, etc.
I’d complete the list, but I have hours and hours to spare compiling it.

What have I said in support of Hillary Clinton? NOTHING! I did not vote for her in my state’s primary…nor did I vote for Trump. I don’t like either of them. Unfortunately, we are stuck with two of the most unpopular candidates ever. I am well aware of Clinton’s faults. I can also see past Trump’s lies and rhetoric. Make of that what you will.

Since you asked, edm, here’s what you said “people like me…people who know how to think…know to judge a man by his actions, not his rhetoric”.
-leaving aside the arrogance you display in that comment, it’s may be true that you can “judge a man” candidate in this election.- You’re not “alienated” by Hillary’s veey checkered record…while in office…because you won’t judge a woman’s cgaracter in this election.

I don’t see any arrogance in that statement. Trump has been caught in a number of lies and misrepresentations. He says one thing and does another. Trump is a sexist/misogynist/bigot/racist. He is not a man to be admired or trusted. Yes, I know how to judge a man/woman by his/her actions. I perceive him as a danger to this country.

“Is there nothing about Trump that you find troubling?”
Yes, all kinds of things.
And yo’ve listed some of them.

The Clintons have been around ( on the national scene) for 25+ years.
Neither my battery life nor my schedule allow me to review all of the crap that they’ve pulled, in piblic life, during that perio.
You say you “don’t like it”, but that Trump’s character “alienates you” because “you know how to think.
There are others “who know how to think”, but are “alienated by 25 years of Clinton sleaze.

Secretary Powell did not keep any of his emails and has so far ignored requests to look on private servers.

We already knew that Secretary Colin Powell exclusively used an outside, personal e-mail account to conduct State Department business. The report confirmed that Powell “did not retain those emails or make printed copies.”

Powell’s team, like Clinton’s, has said he believed his emails could be found by searching the accounts of the State Department staffers who received them, an idea that is sharply criticized in this report.

The State Department has continued to look for Powell’s emails, requesting to connect with his Internet service provider. But, the inspector general wrote, as of May 2016, the department has not received a response from Powell or his staff.

Like Clinton, the Bush White House used a private email server—its was owned by the Republican National Committee. And the Bush administration failed to store its emails, as required by law, and then refused to comply with a congressional subpoena seeking some of those emails. “It’s about as amazing a double standard as you can get,” says Eric Boehlert, who works with the pro-Clinton group Media Matters. “If you look at the Bush emails, he was a sitting president, and 95 percent of his chief advisers’ emails were on a private email system set up by the RNC. Imagine if for the last year and a half we had been talking about Hillary Clinton’s emails set up on a private DNC server?”

Most troubling, researchers found a suspicious pattern in the White House email system blackouts, including periods when there were no emails available from the office of Vice President Dick Cheney. “That the vice president’s office, widely characterized as the most powerful vice president in history, should have no archived emails in its accounts for scores of days—especially days when there was discussion of whether to invade Iraq—beggared the imagination,” says Thomas Blanton, director of the Washington-based National Security Archive. The NSA (not to be confused with the National Security Agency, the federal surveillance organization) is a nonprofit devoted to obtaining and declassifying national security documents and is one of the key players in the effort to recover the supposedly lost Bush White House emails.

edm – did you see in the latest document drops that Hillary was having her personal/State mail (who has no security clearance) print out classified and top secret documents. She also had access to a SCIF that was put in the house. She collected classified documents from the SCIF.

Paul,
Could be like “robodialing” too, where edm=DNC “robocomments”
After teading the recycling of the bogus,discredited “Hillary email defense”, I’m wondering more is this stuff is prepakaged DNC spam.

Steve, re: “Unfortunately, because Trump has indelibly alienated likely the the majority of non-white voters in this country in contrast to bamboozling them as Clinton has, my best guess is that Clinton will win in a landslide.”

Don’t be so sure — there are plenty of blacks and browns for Trump. And then there is also Farrakhan telling blacks not to vote as well as the “depressed minority” sector who will not get out and vote.

Autumn, thanks for this. Farrakhan has always been an interesting fellow to me. When I was a lot younger, and because I grew up in a white, middle-class neighborhood, I always sort of feared what he was saying without looking at the content in the same way as I used to fear Malcolm X, among others. Now, with a little time under my belt, I actually agree with not all but a lot of what they’ve argued politically. Who couldn’t knowing what we know now, except the ignorant, or those still fighting over Abraham’s sons Ishmael and Isaac, or the various bots?!

In any event, will Farrakhan be able to persuade the Christian African-American and Christian Latino vote? I don’t know what kind of influence he has over them. And I don’t know that staying away from the polls is better than actually voting outside the two major parties. The bottom line though is that Trump must win Florida and Ohio, and that’s a tall order. No?

Hi Steve, I wanted to go to the rally – I thought it would be interesting – but my husband persuaded me not to go so we watched it streaming instead. I only saw one white person in the audience. Farrakhan hates whites, but he made some interesting points – especially about Ghaddafi and he tore up the Clintons and defended Trump. I think it’s good he told the folks not to vote as the majority of blacks around here are on the Plantation — low information and educated folks as well! Amazing that he’s in his 80s – seems much younger and he does have charisma which came across even online.

Don’t know about FL — if rally numbers are any indication Trump will win IMO. And Ohio is a wild card – lots of white folks there though – even Dennis Kucinich’s sister is pro Trump. At the free Jay-Z GOTV concert it wasn’t even filled up and people left in droves when HRC started talking.

HRC has star power, but from my observations Bernie, Trump and to some degree Jill has people power. It is truly amazing how many people have produced videos – rants, songs, sketches, etc. against HRC. And if they took the time to do this they will almost certainly vote. I also believe that many people are going to vote for Trump but have not openly supported him.

I went to to the tri county fair yesterday and wore my “pro woman / anti Hillary” T-shirt along with a Jill Stein pin. At least 11 women came up and told me how much they liked my shirt and that they are voting for Trump but afraid to put up signs in their yards. They had never heard of Jill. Countless other women and men smiled and gave me thumbs up. And one young white guy manning a booth leaned over and whispered that he was voting for Jill.

After that we went to the “belly of the beast” — an organic food store which is in a section of town that is totally Hilbot territory. I got some glares from patrons but at the meat counter a young white guy leaned over and said “hey I love the shirt and I am voting for Jill Stein” Said he had to vote his conscience. He was also very quiet and looked around before he said that.

So I think Jill is going to get her 5% and also Johnson (unfortunately).

Baloney! Pitiful growth every year of Obama’s Presidency and Hillary wants to be Obama III. The stock market is not a good measure of how the American worker is faring. We need employment, not stock market increases.

And how is Trump going to make jobs for Americans…by importing steel from China, using undocumented workers on his construction sites, and having his goods made in other countries as he has done in the past?

We’ve previously checked a claim by Cruz that “we’ve got the lowest labor force participation in over three decades, since 1978.” We rated that Mostly True at the time, and it’s still an accurate claim today. But we wondered whether Cruz was right that “92 million Americans aren’t working.” So we took a closer look.

In one sense, Cruz’s estimate is actually too low. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 249.7 million non-institutionalized civilians 16 years of age and older last month. Of those, 148.2 million were employed, leaving 101.7 million not employed.

But neither Cruz’s 92 million figure nor the actual 101.7 million figure is especially meaningful — because they lump in both the young and the old.

Of the 101.7 million people who are not employed, 37.5 million are age 65 and over — an age when Medicare kicks in and many Americans head into retirement. Another 11.9 million are between 16 and 19, meaning they’re either high-school-age or starting college. And another 8 million are age 20 to 24, when many are in college or graduate school.

Combined, these groups account for 57.5 million Americans — or more than three-fifths of the number Cruz cited.

Could one quibble with our calculation? Sure — one could exclude the 20 to 24 category since not everyone that age is college-bound. And improving senior health means that Americans can effectively work past 65.

Still, we don’t see much justification for Cruz counting high-school-age kids (roughly 10 million) and Americans 75 and up (17.6 million). Even this far more restrictive definition leaves almost one-third of Cruz’s number questionable.

Another point worth noting: Just because someone in the prime working-age range (25 to 64) isn’t working doesn’t mean that they are unemployed. They may be disabled, taking care of children full-time or have gone back to school. The actual number of officially unemployed Americans in January was a little under 9 million — just one-tenth of the figure Cruz cited as “not working.”

President Bush signed into law Friday a historic $700 billion bailout of the financial services industry, promising to move swiftly to use his sweeping new authority to unlock frozen credit markets to get the economy moving again.

“It’s complicated, and we’re going to make sure whatever we do is done in a deliberative fashion,” Bush told reporters after he signed the bill as soon as he got it from the House, which passed the measure after a topsy-turvy week of legislative victories, defeats and power plays.

But he promised to get the ball rolling quickly, because the authority is “essential to helping Ameica’s economy weather the financial crisis.”

Stocks were down moderately in late trading after the successful vote. Earlier, stocks had been up sharply.
After a week of reversals and intense lobbying, the measure ended up comfortably passing the House by a vote of 263-171 after members who voted to kill it earlier in the week came around to a Senate version that offered more protection for individual investors and small businesses.

Did I say that I was a Hillary Clinton supporter? I was a big Bernie Sanders supporter. He was able to get Hillary and the Democrats to adopt the most progressive platform in the party’s history. I much prefer the Democratic platform to the Republican platform. The Republican party of today is very different from the party that I remember from my early adulthood.

Nope. Republicans have ties to community bankers. Casino banking is a Democratic interest group. James Dimon, Vikram Pandit, and Lloyd Blankfein are all Democrats. Kenneth Lewis is a Republican, but his bank had prior to 2008 was a commercial bank with a modest stake in securities underwriting (and little or none in proprietary trading or prime brokerage). His bank was also headquartered not in New York, but in North Carolina.

For the most part, the TARP money and the Maiden Lane deals were bridge loans which were paid back. The actors which received real bailouts were Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae; the auto industry components; and AIG. Only AIG among them was not a Democratic Party client (and the losses on the AIG deal were circumscribed compared to the money pumped into the mortgage maws).

DeMint said that the “big Wall Street banks, the big corporations” give “many times more” political donations to Democrats than Republicans and he referred to his time in the U.S. Senate from 2005 to 2013.

Democrats raised nearly three times more than Republicans in one financial sector in one election cycle. But for the most part, when they led their margins were much smaller. And in recent cycles, Republicans have led in money from Wall Street and business.

Christopher (Friend of Angelo) Dodd and Barney Frank were both shills for some of the more unsightly figures in the financial sector. Frank led efforts in 2005 to sabotage Republican initiatives to improve accounting practices at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. There were two discrete sets of acts which, more than any other, brought on the crisis: the entry of the AIG Financial Products Unit into OTC derivatives trading and Freddie Mac slashing underwriting standards in 2003. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were chock-a-block with Democratic Party insiders (James Johnson, Jamie Gorelick, Franklin Raines, and Barney Frank boy toy Herb Moses to name four).

Dodd-Frank is a hideously complex piece of legislation written in a series of lobbyist bull sessions in Barney Frank’s office. It does nothing to remedy crucial structural defects in the financial sector.

In another upheaval to the presidential race, FBI Director James Comey on Sunday afternoon sent a new letter to Congress notifying members that after reviewing a new batch of emails to and from Hillary Clinton, the bureau has not “not changed our conclusions that we expressed in July with respect to Secretary Clinton.”

In the letter, Comey said that FBI investigators “reviewed all of the communications that were to or from Hillary Clinton while she was Secretary of State.”

NBC’s Pete Williams reported on air via phone on Sunday afternoon, citing a senior law enforcement official, that nearly all of the emails the FBI looked at in its new review were duplicates of emails they had already reviewed during the original investigation. Williams also reported that the FBI’s new review of emails is now “substantially” over.

Comey’s latest announcement, which again came in a brief letter to members of Congress, has the potential to alter the presidential race yet again.

Whichever way it turns out, people like you can still go to bed secure in the sincere belief that you are both wonderfully intelligent, and extremely moral. Much as a supporter of Hitler and Nazism would have gone to bed in 1937, full of certainty that he had helped protect the Fatherland from all those pesky Jews, and communists.

Later, when it all starts to blow up in various ways, I wonder if people like you will have any inkling of the horrible destruction you wrought upon the country? The American Generals made people like you clean up the camps in Germany. They took them out of their bourgeois burgs, and took then to the scenes of destruction, but I suspect that even while they were puking, they somehow blamed that on the Jews, too?

Here, there are no extremes like the camps for you to clean up, sooo I wonder if it is possible to know what really passes for thought inside those craniums? Or is it cranii???

At any rate, even if Trump does win, which I doubt, there will only be a brief respite before the country continues to descend down the toilet.

Screw the ADL. It is more of a Democratic Party front organization sometimes than it is pro-Jewish. Only la-di-da liberals like yourself would fall for their propaganda. Just like you fall for the idiot nonsense about Hillary being all for regular folks, and not the Wall Street types.

That is what I mean when I either imply, or flatly state in various comments that you are a complete frigging shallow and vapid nincompoop. I do not think that there is a physical component to your inability to comprehend things. It is just for you, and your ilk, you have some sort of “group or herd consciousness” and when you hear that a group like the ADL says something, well by-golly that is good enough for you! You race off to align yourself with the group!

Try pulling your head out of that dark place that it dwells, and just look at things without a partisan type lens. Let me give you a thought exercise, because God Knows, you need to take that gray matter out and work it out some.

The ADL comes out and says that Michael Moore “conjures painful stereotypes and baseless conspiracy theories” when Michael attacks the TPP. The ADL says that Michael is rehashing images of, get ready for it – – – –
THE YELLOW PERIL days of American history!

Do you hop right in line and start repeating it, or do you think about it? I’m betting you think about it, because Michael M is a democrat, and you don’t want to believe that sort of stuff about Democrats.

Now, the ADL says the same thing about Trumps attacks on TPP! That it is just rehashing the painful images of THE YELLOW PERIL. Do you agree with them now? I am betting yes. You might say “no”, but I don’t think anybody here would believe you.

Methinks that a la-di-da liberal such as yourself has Squeeky a tad upset. Shame on you…you “frigging shallow and vapid nincompoop.” We can’t have Squeeky getting all agitated. We don’t want her eyeballs spinning in their sockets…do we?

No, it’s not just now sinking in. I am a realist, and I truly believe that stupid people, like you and EDM, outnumber smart people like me. I think that is maybe true for every period of time since we have had civilizations. Not just here, in 2016, in the U.S. It is why civilizations come and go. It is why we lawyers, to correct the stupid mistakes that people make.

That is probably just the Human Condition, and those of us who actually see it, and grok it, and lament it, are not destined to be able to change it. You might want to look up the myth of Cassandra.

Therefore, I have always thought that Trump would lose. Even without all the DNC voter fraud. I would be pleasantly surprised if he won, but even then, all he can do is buy us a few years respite from the current Juggernaut of Idiocy which is squashing us.

What I do enjoy, is the opportunity to give a few good swift kicks to the nincompoops I have to share the planet with. With SWM, that opportunity comes a lot. It’s like The Emperor’s New Clothes, and even though the Emperor will still be the Emperor even after he paraded around in his undies, it would sure have been fun to laugh and catcall at him and his entourage for a few minutes.

As you can tell, Squeeky’s eyeballs ARE spinning as she continues trying to insult your intelligence. I guess that’s all she has left as an argument. Poor “girl reporter.” She has to claim how smart she is. I guess she fears that some of us may think that she is lacking in gray matter.

As I asked earlier it seems to me that Clinton supporters are pro war. She is pro war. No rebuttals there. So I guess spreading death and destruction in the name of ideals of the Democratic party are fine. Curious position to own.

As I ask from time to time, what happened to the anti war left? Hmmmm.

If Putin doesn’t close down Aleppo by the time Clinton takes office, I guess we’ll see what the future holds, or does not hold.

Bernie Sanders appeared on Real Time With Bill Maher Friday night to share his thoughts on the Democratic National Convention and the “dangerous” Donald Trump.

“I think it was a good convention. I think it brought together people with different points of view within the Democratic Party. But I think what comes out of that convention is the understanding that Donald Trump is the most dangerous presidential candidate in the modern history of this country and he must be defeated.”

“And I say that not just because of his absurd views on so many issues. He believes that climate change is a hoax. He wants to give hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks to the top 1 percent,” Sanders added. “But above and beyond all of that, this guy is running his entire campaign based on bigotry. Based on trying to divide us up. Based on trying to insult Mexicans, Latinos, Muslims, women and African-Americans. Remember, that this guy was one of the leaders of the so-called Birther Movement.”

“It’s no secret that Hillary Clinton and I have disagreements on a number of issues, and what I intend to do the day after Hillary Clinton is elected president of the United States is to do everything I can to make sure that she goes forward as progressively that she can, maintaining the very strong Democratic progressive platform that we passed together,” Sanders said.

FWIW, above. . . the Stock Market is not even a good way to measure the value of stocks, much less the state of the economy. You might as well try to gauge the economy by the sales of arts and antiquities. You might get a rough picture of whether or not rich people have more loot to overpay for stuff with, but as a tool, it is a very blunt axe.

Same with the Dow or Nasdaq IMHO. Why do large “sell” orders get broken down into “small” sell orders? Because volume is a big factor. To simply value by the last price paid is pretty iffy. The ownership of stocks is basically a small minority interest in a corporation, and you get money two ways:

1. Dividend stream
2. Hoping some other schmuck will pay for more your stock than you did.

Number 2 is the biggest way to make the money.

In a growing and stable economy, stocks will probably move up, but most of the increase is usually just due to inflation. Which, parking your $ where it will not lose value over time is fine, but one day, Mr. Reality will come knocking. I expect him to knock on Amazon’s door one of these days, and there will weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth.